Integrating open hypermedia systems with the World Wide Web

Abstract

Research on open hypermedia systems (OHSs) has been conducted since the late Eighties. These systems employ a variety of techniques to provide hypermedia services to a diverse range of applications. The World Wide Web is the largest distributed hypermedia system in use and was developed largely independent of the research in OHSs. The popularity of the Web along with problems inherent in its design has motivated OHS researchers to integrate their systems with it. This research has primarily focused on enhancing the functionality of the Web via the services of an OHS. This paper presents three experiments exploring the integration of the Chimera OHS with the Web. While one of the experiments indeed describes work which enhances the Web, the other two investigate ways in which the Web can beneficially enhance an OHS. The paper concludes with a call for both communities to continue research which focuses on integration.